THE INNOCENT: William Shatner and Peggy Ann Garner play Michael and Ann Donfield, a couple who own an exterminator business and have a suburban dream. They are chosen by UNCLE because they could easily pass as the holders of a secret chemical formula whose little business is just a front. It's weird to see William Shatner (who needs no more introduction) as anything other than a leading man, and Solo even has to take over for him at one point, because he's stealing the show. Donfield keeps getting drunk or knocked out as a result of the format, but he enjoys the adventure. His wide is the better actress, but has more of a support role on the mission. As for Garner, she had a career as a fairly famous child star (she won a Juvenile Oscar in 1946 - yes, they had those - likely for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), dating back to the 1930s, and had fallen into television guest roles as an adult, after spending the '50s on Broadway.
REVIEW: What kind of organization is UNCLE that the agents are allowed - not just allowed, expected - to come up with their own operation plans and the boss just trusts it'll be fine? I'm not a fan of Waverley as a character and this laissez-faire attitude just makes his character even more pointless. At least he's in an interrogation scene later and lends it some weight, but Leo G. Carroll's lack of intensity is still a problem. Regardless, this is at once the most Mission: Impossible story UNCLE has done - with some real grifting rules in effect, like Illya in disguise convincing the mark NOT to do what he WANTS him to do - and also the most Cold War story yet. They're not exactly after regime change, but they might as well, discrediting an ambassador who is poised to become an influential leader in what is arguably the USSR's government. Kurasov (played by Werner "Colonel Klink" Klemperer) is a formidable threat, but one ambitious and paranoid enough to fall for our heroes' plot.
And so we have an ordinary couple roped into playing the role of secret industrialists, a secret phone line to the president, microdots hidden under fake fingernails, Illya in a wig and communist beard biting down on fake cyanide capsules, drugged baby formula squirted at the wrong person (the tape recorder baby isn't really hungry), an enemy contact consistently called Mr. Smith despite her obvious charms, the smell of bitter almonds in every drink, secret codes shouted by mystery men who are vanished by the U.S. government, a fictional sleep gas that could change the balance of power, and blackmailers blackmailing blackmailers into committing treason. It's exciting spy stuff, and then... it doesn't work! Illya spotted the chaotic element - Kurasov's jealous and opportunistic aide Vladeck (Leonard Nimoy) balls everything up and UNCLE has to rescue their plan with a last-minute improvisation. Illya rising from the dead, truth serum cigarettes, a bank account to frame the bad guy in addition to making him look foolish... How many clever ideas can one script have? My only objection is with the Leverage ending where the heroes all wave Kurasov goodbye at the airport. There's no need to gloat, and it's even a security risk to show your hand at this point.
Of course, no discussion of this episode would be complete without the Big Trivia that keeps it relevant in pop culture: It's the first onscreen collaboration between Shatner and Nimoy, two years before Star Trek premieres. They even have some scenes together, and one proper interaction ('shippers will note they already look in love). They're both having a lot of fun, and Shatner, in particular, shows a deft hand at comedy, playing drunk or overwhelmed by the complicated spycraft. Nimoy's spoiler is cool, too, easily swinging between smug satisfaction and browbeaten by Kurasov. To buff your trivia game, the episode was directed by Joseph Sargent, who also directed the first non-pilot Star Trek episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver", and the "Elite" prop magazine read by Madame Kurasov showed up in 1968's "Bread and Circuses", where Spock came across it on the Roman planet.
HEARD ON CHANNEL D: "A ruthless and dangerous warmonger, hiding under the cloak of diplomacy. One part Molotov, one
part Von Ribbentrop, salt with Genghis Khan and garlic with Machiavelli." (Illya on Kurasov)
"'Almost.' A word that sticks edgewise in the throat to strangle one." (Illya)
BONDED: Very much a Mission: Impossible plot (or would be) rather than 007. That show's Cinnamon Carter will even appear on a cover of "Elite" magazine.
REWATCHABILITY - High: It's really my kind of spy story, even if it didn't have that fun Trek connection (which is also my kind of thing).
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